iWork 09 or Office 2008?

I'm switching from a pc to a Mac and have a question regarding preferences for these two programs. For the past 20 years I have used MS Word to create documents, workbooks, etc. Has anyone switched from Office (Word) to iWork (Pages)? Which do you prefer and why? The reason I'm asking is I am tempted to ditch MS but don't want to step off a cliff.

Office 2008 is the best of the currently available programs.

To me it all depends on your usage and needs. If you need Office for say a job or school or need 100% Office Compatibility, then get Office.

For my daily usage I much prefer iWork to office but for what I do have never had issues running what I save in office. You can export to an office format. With some functions though you might run into compatibility issues. It all depends on what you do in say a Spreadsheet or document.

You can't go wrong with Office for sure. I just really do not need it and the few times I have Pages or Numbers results worked great in Word or Excel.

Ever since i ditched Office 04 and went full time to iWork 08 then 09 have never had a deal where the whole page was reformatted between what i wanted and set up, and what Office insisted i should have. Yes there was a learning curve but for me it is so much less frustrating to use and i get to keep what little hair i have left.

I find Pages (iWork08, 09) to be a great application for small publishing projects such as church bulletins, fliers, banners, and the like. As a matter of fact it almost does what MS Publisher can do in Windows. But as a word processor application, it falls short of Office Word 2008. But that's just my opinion.

By the way Collin, don't they sell "Rogaine" in NZ?

Regards.

I'd like to like iWork, but Office is just too deeply entrenched in business. I work in Enterprise and having 2 or 3 office suites on my home computer is just silly for me. I grudgingly use Office 2004 at home, and hope for the day that iWork integrates better with Visio, Project and Excel. I have tried NeoOffice and OOo, but found both to have too many layers of menus to be practical. I could learn them, but I already know Office so investing time to learn the locations of advanced functions is not worth the payoff for me.

Well here is one factor in deciding if Office 2008 or iwork 09 is for you. (According to the Apple US site)

Office Home and Student Edition - $149.95
Office Business Edition - $399.95
Office Business Edition (Upgrade) - $249.95
iwork 09 - $79.00

If you really think you need Office sure, go and get it, but if you think you will be hard pressed to make use of the extra features Office has and iwork does not then it's not worth it. You'd be paying an extra at least $70 more for features you might not use.

That along is a good reason to get iwork. Plus personally I'd not use the extra Office has to offer. So iwork for me. You might use those features. But I do not.